This edition of BWNS is brought to you by Keepkey: the best looking and easiest to use Bitcoin Hardware Wallet that helps you securely hold your Bitcoin Wallet Private Key, While at the same time allowing you to use it safely and swiftly to transact with at any moment. www.BuyKeepKey.com

Bitcoin Average Exchange Price For The Week

Mon, January 30: $920-$925

Tue, January 31: $926-$976

Wed, February 1st: $973-$993

Thursday, February 2nd: $989-$1000-$1029

Friday, February 3rd: $1022-$1031-$1020

Saturday, February 4th: $1019-$1043

Sunday, Feb 5: $1041-$1021-$1036

The Bitcoin Average Exchange Price for the week was nothing else but an uptrend, a climb or a bull walk depending on how you want to call it. All positive, all week. As such, there is not even a point in trying to write more on it than is needed. Because of that, I instead, just put up the list of the Price Ranges during the days of the week from low to high. With in most days during the week, the low and the high also being the price start of the day and the ending price of the day respectively. You cannot ask for a better week than that. Not too frantic, Not too volatile. Just up, up and up.

News

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Microsoft Announced A Collaboration With Tieron For Blockchain-Based Attestation And Data Platform

Which means being able to manage data that has been linked to a blockchain for proof of existence and and integrity validation. Tieron approach is to being able to do so effectively from a single point being able to do all this for a big amount of data. While it is never confirmed they are talking about the Bitcoin Blockchain. Tieron is primarily Bitcoin blockchain based and it is really the only blockchain you would want to do this with.

In what is a very sad end to a Bitcoin Exchange from Poland that has been around since 2012. The owner and operator decided to perform a disappearing act. Hopefully something will come out of this and the operator of this exchange will be caught.

In the ongoing saga of the IRS vs Coinbase & Berns. USA’s Tax Man has now asked to move the hearing until the 23rd of March. Something that notably neither Coinbase or Berns objected to. Whether this means the IRS will reduce the scope of their petition to Coinbase or will come with a trick is unknown.

While the headline gives away almost all the story. It is one hell of a headline. It is news and it is also contextually Funny and Ironic. You don’t get much of those kind of headline. Only other details worth adding to the story is that the guy got away with a misdemeanor offense, a year in probation and a $5000 USD fine. Considering he mined from 2012 to 2014. It was worth it only if the guy held the Bitcoin.

If there is ever a follow up to this story, I want an interview with guy years later just answer that question: did you held the Bitcoins? Yes or no. That’s it.

Meaning they will immediate allow for those deposits to become USD. This as long the depositors agree to be submitted to an automated clearing system that will preemptively calculate how long it will take for those transactions to be confirmed in the Bitcoin Blockchain and how likely they are to get confirmed normally in the first place.

Bitpesa Raised $2.5M USD In A New Series A Funding Round. Aims For Expansion To Nigeria

The African Bitcoin Startup that started out of Kenya had already grown to extend some targeted coverage to Uganda and Tanzania. This new round was led by Draper VC, along with Greycroft Partners, Blockchain Capital, BnkToTheFuture, Digital Currency Group, Pantera Capital Future\Perfect Ventures and Zephyr Acorn. Of those, Greycroft is a new investor in the startup.

This news, in no doubt a continuation of the apparent crackdown by Venezuela’s Government on Bitcoin. Coming after and closing down of two Bitcoin Mining Operations in the country along series of arrest on the matter. While it is unclear what will happen with SurBitcoin. The response to this news was that volumes on LocalBitcoins shot up higher along with Bitcoin activity on the Colombian side from Venezuelans.

Good news coming out of the United Arab Emirates. Since the reason given was that it is because Bitcoin is a Digital Currency and a Store of Value. Which is correct. For me it is specially good news because that means the UAE got their definitions straight and sorted out. Something that don’t seems to be the cases yet in many parts of the world.

Kiara Robles Of Blockstream Was Cowardly Attacked At UC Berkeley With Pepper Spray While Wearing A “Make Bitcoin Great Again” Hat

In a sad series of happenings that then was turned around with a flurry of media coverage by the same Kiara Robles. Even if the last thing you would want is media coverage out of controversy. In the end, Bitcoin also got some extra air time. It just disappointing this was the way it happened.

The answer to the question of how could a Bitcoin Block Explorer could look if it was part of a VR environment.

Bitcoin In A Super Bowl LI Ad

.

Only for a fraction of a second. But still counts, specially given the context and the kind of Ad it was.

Patrick Byrne From Overstock Appeared In A Fox Business Segment With A “Make Bitcoin Great Again” Hat

Hat which by the way refers to those supporting Segwit and that want it to pass so Bitcoin can continue growing safely.

This edition of BWNS is brought to you by Keepkey: the best looking and easiest to use Bitcoin Hardware Wallet that helps you securely hold your Bitcoin Wallet Private Key, While at the same time allowing you to use it safely and swiftly to transact with at any moment. www.BuyKeepKey.com

That’s all for this week! Please return every week to get the most relevant Bitcoin News in one go and in a single post.

This edition of BWNS is brought to you thanks to www.CryptoSteel.com . The coldest Bitcoin Hardware Wallet there is. But also the most hardened way to back up and preserve any kind of password safe and secure. Which is offline and pressed into a case of steel.

Bitcoin Average Exchange Price For The Week

Monday 23 started with the price at around $923 for the low of the day, followed with a slight increase to $928 for the high of the day and got in a slow decline at $925 at the end.

Tuesday 24 got going with dip to $906 , followed with a bounce to $921 that served as the high and ended with a low to $896

Wednesday 25 went with a low of $896. With the day following with a tiny increase to a high of $904. Then just retraced back $896 yet again and finished with small bounce to $899.

Thursday 26 showed up with a low of $900 and jumped to a high $918.

Friday 27 continued holding $918, had a little trip to a low of $914 and finished at a high of $924.

Saturday 28 slid in at $921, bumped to a high of $924 and tripped to a low of $920.

Sunday 29 glided in at $920, got to a low of $917 and then ended the week at $920.

Overall a calm week to end January where the BAEP settled in as the final effects of the PBOC intervention on Chinese Exchanges were reflected in the price per Bitcoin. But also in trading volume balancing out worldwide in a way that had not been seen in years. These effects came from the news that Chinese Exchanges started charging trade fees. Which of course stopped the indiscriminate abuse of wash trading that had been going on. This summed up with the end of loans and crazy amounts of leverage in Chinese Exchanges made Trading volume fall up to 90% at one point. But all in all at least 70% less than the usual figures before POBC actions.

This don’t means things will stay this way. But it sure will be a change of pace from what had been the usual for over 2 years now.

News

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Third annual Satoshi Roundtable took place in Cancun, Mexico

Where known Bitcoiners of all around the scene meet together to talk frankly and more or less privately as long as they get invited once a year.

They have been charged with Electricity Theft and Cyber Fraud. Even if Bitcoin itself is not illegal. In Venezuela, Electricity at almost free can only be for residential use and not business use unless you have clearance for it. This is of course not clear at all from the outside. But it is what I have been told. Then, when it comes to the Cyber Fraud. The charge is also in reference of they not having a registered business. Or at best, a “cleared to operate” business.

PR guy said it was because of Lack of Interest. In my case, I don’t believe him. I think that the change had also to do with the bad attention Fiverr got after #1 YouTuber PewDiePie made a video where he paid some guys in Fiverr to say an Anti-Semitic statement as a crude joke. The guys in question didn’t even knew what they were saying and got banned too. Bringing in even more bad publicity. From that, apparently some inquires where made in how this was even possible to have happened in the first place. Considering that the YouTube Video has close to 10 Million views alone. This was probably the most attention Fiverr has ever got in its history. I think that the timing cannot be coincidence and they removing it is just a PR move. Just as it was to unban the guys in the video in question after the outrage it caused for them to be banned. I just don’t see how that didn’t had something to do with it too. After all, when they added the option, it was also a PR move in the first place as Fiverr didn’t had full support of Bitcoin. Just partial support.

The License in question was provided by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA). This allows Xapo to operate without worries from now on and offer all its services to Switzerland citizens.

Xapo for those that need a reminder on what it is, is more or less like a Private Bitcoin Fund for a group of very wealthy individuals that got into Bitcoin back in 2013, that also happens to operate as a Bitcoin Wallet and Solutions Provider.

The Story of IRS vs Coinbase and IRS vs Berns continued with the IRS arguing they have the legal edge

How so? In this case the IRS argues that because of how their case was filed, it can be considered ex parte, which would make the pleas from Coinbase and Berns irrelevant. As the District Court the IRS asking to issue and blanket order to authorize the IRS to just ask for all the data of all Coinbase USA customers in the past 3 years can be judged by the court on its filing merits alone. Meaning that the district court can just decide to ignore Coinbase and Berns cases on it.

Technically, that’s 100% correct. That don’t means the District Court have to do just that either. But unless the District Court is actually interested in dispensing what is right and not just what is technically legal first. It is likely Coinbase and Berns will lose the case.

Washington State Liquor & Cannabis Board are OK with Bitcoin being used for Pot Purchases

After a bill that called for the ban of Bitcoin for Pot Purchases in Washington State, the state senate had a hearing about it. In the end rationally arguing that is OK, since there is already a regulatory framework that regulates Bitcoin, they can just follow that instead of they having to rule something on it. Based on that, they found nothing wrong about the way Bitcoin was being used to support pot purchases.

Of course that’s the simplified version of the news. To read more on it, click in.

Interpol and Europol Recommended To Regulate Bitcoin More and Ban Bitcoin Mixers at their recent conference

How exactly they would want to ban Bitcoin Mixers when they are becoming distributed and are looking to become decentralized in the long term future is anybody’s guess. When it comes to Bitcoin itself. Hard times in regulatory terms could be faced by Bitcoin Exchanges located in Europe later during the year if even more regulation is introduced. Finally, one also has to wonder what they could had commented or thought about if immediately after recommending this someone reminded them about Brexit.

CJS CD Keys is a Game Key Reseller that competes with the now two more known players in that niche which are G2A and Kinguin, who also accept Bitcoin. The key difference with its competitors is that it resells ALL kinds of game keys. This makes it a good addition to the Bitcoin Adoption in the PC Gaming space. Where now pretty much only GOG, Uplay and Origin have yet to accept Bitcoin. This when it comes to Big Game Marketplaces.

Still to come for Windows 10. Probably for the Creators Update. As previously seen, Excel will also have Bitcoin support later in the year.

It is also good to remember Cortana and Bing have full Bitcoin Price Look Up support. It can be used directly from the start menu too by just writing: 1 BTC USD or other currencies combinations like 0.092 BTC MXN. Both will give the conversion result without the need to click enter.

It was bound to happen, it was just a matter of when. Person or Persons in possession of the coins are probably starting to check how to best to move them. In response to this, Bitfinex is now offering a 5% bounty per Bitcoin returned from the hack.

If you want to remember more on the Bitfinex hack and how exactly they are still operating. Clink in to read the news report.

This edition of BWNS is brought to you thanks to www.CryptoSteel.com . The coldest Bitcoin Hardware Wallet there is. But also the most hardened way to back up and preserve any kind of password safe and secure. Which is offline and pressed into a case of steel.

That’s all for this week! Please return every week to get the most relevant Bitcoin News in one go and in a single post.

This edition of BWNS is brought to you thanks to www.CryptoSteel.com . The coldest Bitcoin Hardware Wallet there is. But also the most hardened way to back up and preserve any kind of password safe and secure. Which is offline and pressed into a case of steel.

Bitcoin Average Exchange Price For The Week.

The BAEP in the third week of 2017, while still filled with volatility. Was not as bad of a ride compared to week 2. Ride started on Monday 16 above $820 USD and then rose with a high of $834 and stayed without much movement at all after that. Tuesday 17 started pretty much as Monday ended with a low of $834 and then saw a huge rise up to $892 and ended up the day in a high of $909. Wednesday 18 showed up with a high of $912, only to then plunge back down to a low of $864 and finish with a small recovery to $880. Thursday 19 went on with a small increment to $895 and went off with a high of $908. Friday 20 arrived with a small decrease to $903 that still would serve as the high, continued with a dip to a low $891 and parted off with $902. Saturday 21 embraced the weekend with a small decrease to $899 that would serve as bottom of the weekend and then got it mood back up with a uptrend to $922, that then escalated to a high of $928. Sunday 22 continued in a good mood with $929, followed with a high of $940, but ran off steam and plunged down to a low of $900. Ending the week with a recovery to $922.

Most of the reactions of the price per Bitcoin still had strong links to the fallout of the PBOC oversight on Chinese Exchanges. As most of them eliminated margin trading and started the discussion of ending zero fees trading. On top of that, Donald Trump inauguration took place, marking the beginning of the USA presidency of Donald j. Trump.

News

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The North American Bitcoin Conference took place for its fourth year in Miami.

TNABC 2017 was still quite filled with a lot of Blockchain related stuff that was not at all about The Bitcoin Blockchain. That said, one of the relevant Bitcoin related news to come out from it was that Abra, will be launching worldwide in February with support for 50 fiat currencies. Using Bitcoin as the backend. On what Abra is and why it is being seen as a big deal? Well, maybe because it is presumably many things at once in a single app. It is being heralded as paypal, circle and western union in one app. Whether it lives up to the hype of that description or it just becomes a competitor for startups like coin.ph, paxful, localbitcoin apart from coinbase and circle is yet to be seen. Some of the other highlights were presentations from MGT, Rootstock and Bitwage. All which can be watched right from this post.

Or so it seems. Or if it has, it is by a hair. If this is accurate that means both China and Japan are now ahead of USA when it comes to Bitcoin trading. Making Asia the dominant force in this area of the Bitcoin Ecosystem along with Mining Pools, Mining Facilities and Mining Hardware development. This development should not come to as much of a surprise. Given that as it was reported in a previous BWNS edition. Japan now has two solid Bitcoin Exchanges and Bitcoin Payment Processing adoption on the rise along with those.

Barry Silbert files to list the Bitcoin Investment Trust (BIT) on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) for a $500M USD Initial Public Offering (IPO)

This was done by Grayscale Investment LLC, that is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group according to the SEC filling documentation records. BIT is what has been known as GBTC, that so far trades at a crazy premium on OTCQX. In resume, this means that the SEC will now have two Bitcoin ETF to considerate. One from the Winklevoss Twins known as (COIN) and Silbert’s (BIT) .

As part of its Digitalization Strategy, Daimler AG bought PayCash Europe to use it as the backend for Mercedes Pay. Which seems to be an in-car ewallet service for their Mercedes Benz cars. Yet, buying PayCash could also then be used as the backend for other apps that Daimler AG is invested in like Car2Go and MyTaxi.

All of this is only really a good thing and good news for Bitcoin, if PayCash Europe not only keeps supporting BPP as usual. But also enables it as an option in Mercedes Pay, Car2Go and MyTaxi. Otherwise, this news will end up as either inconsequential or disappointing. Time will tell.

It is now known that Bitpay Bitcoin Transaction movement surpassed the 200,000 transactions per month. And that means Bitpay transactional volume doubled in 2016. Making for very good news. This means healthy growth when it comes to Bitcoin Payment Processing as these numbers are only coming from Bitpay. And there are now 7 different Bitcoin Payment Processor providers around the world.

Saying that he may be doing something in the Cryptocurrency space later. Which sounds conveniently vague. Kind of feels like he is not just leaving Coinbase, but also the Bitcoin Space.

Ehrsam also declared optimistically that he leaving is not bad and neither it will be when more people leave Coinbase. Something that already has been happening. Fred says it is just like what happened with Paypal. Where ex-employes went to do great ventures and got named a Paypal Mafia. Literally stating that ex-coinbase employees could later on be seen as the Coinbase Mafia. Implying all of the early Coinbase employees are bound to future great successes.

Blockstream released a White Paper explaining the Strong Federations System. A Foundational piece to improve upon their Sidechain implementation project known as Liquid

The White Paper titled “Strong Federations: An Interoperable Blockchain Solution to Centralized Third Party Risks” details how to improve privacy, costs, speed of value transfers and settlement among exchanges and brokerages.

Material in question is too technical to summarize effectively without recreating the linked news report and the source article. Please click in to read more about it.

As discussed on the price weekly recap. The effects of the PBOC oversight of Chinese Bitcoin Exchanges continued this week. With Leverage being the first thing to go away. Margin trading had to be second thing to go.

Previously already cornered the Bitcoin Payment Processing market in Japan. GMO has now decided to enter more Bitcoin markets and will offer a Wallet and Exchange offering, that they promise will be first level even to experienced traders. Not that hard to believe considering they are very experienced in the area of securities and online security. GMO also happens to be one of the biggest IT companies in Japan and its is now also known they are an investor in the currently regarded best Japanese Bitcoin Exchange Bitflyer. The very same one who did a mainstream worth video Ad campaign. One they were quite confident enough to pay to occupy the homepage of Yahoo Japan. Site which is still one of the Top 10 most visited sites in Japan. Needless say, it is safe assume that Bitcoin is now Big in Japan.

It took quite longer than anticipated versus The Google+ Bitcoin Community which is now at over 31,000 members. And the reasons were:

1.- Unlike other Facebook Bitcoin Groups around. TFBBG is tightly maintained. With over 2,500 members being removed via moderation over time. This because they were spammers or dummy accounts.

2.- Facebook introduced account auto-moderation in 2016. And it quickly removed well over 2,500 accounts from the membership during 2016 alone. Apart from that. Facebook also removed accounts that were not even into the community. The way I can tell is that their profile don't exist anymore, but they still appear as requesting to join.

I guesstimate that between facebook and moderation over 2000 more accounts were never even allowed in from the request list over 2016 up to now. That makes for a cut of over 7000 account from the possible membership number tally.

So, that's that. But this is how there is also no spam or scams over there. Even when achieving that on a Facebook Group is x5 harder than in G+.

Kyle Torpey think so based on his findings and makes the case for that being the case. With the possibility that the future of Bitcoin and Gambling brightest point is yet to come.

Thanks to my experience managing two of the Top Bitcoin discussion sites. I can tell from that experience that Bitcoin Casino Affiliates post submissions and spam attempts do have increased significantly in the last 6 months. I also have seen big gambling sites ads lately specify they do accept Bitcoin. So, I do believe that the outlook of Bitcoin in Gambling is a good bet.

Bitcoin Uncensored really surprised everyone that cared to notice with the way they covered The North American Bitcoin Conference 2017. With them basically having their own Mini Conference within TNABC 2017. All with much of it happening on the bathroom facilities of the conference venue. No, you didn’t just read that wrong. Chris DeRose and Junseth along with some great hosting help of Tone Vays and Riccardo “Fluffypony Spagni did panels by setting up a table and recording equipment inside the in-use and active Men bathrooms facility provided by TNABC 2017. They of course went beyond Bitcoin Coverage and while all panels are worth a watch. The following ones are the ones I personally think deserve a share.

Since explaining the how, why and what of Bitcoin Uncensored would be in part spoiling the fun. Here are the videos from the panels without providing any further explanations.

Brian Hoffman from OpenBazaar

Roger Ver

Bruce Fenton

Theo Chino & Pierre Ciric

Nicolas Bacca

Moe Levin

Drew Vander Hink, Adella Toulon-Foerster and Jason Seibert

Ok, just one note. If you can only watch one panel. Watch this last one above with Tone Vays as host. It was something else, trust me.

Novelties & Humor

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Have you ever wondered about just how seriously is Bitcoin being studied Academically and how many articles could you find about Bitcoin over the years if you went looking for them around the web?

Brett Scott sure did. He made a long list in a spreadsheet that anyone can take look at.

This edition of BWNS was brought to you thanks to www.CryptoSteel.com . The coldest Bitcoin Hardware Wallet there is. But also the most hardened way to back up and preserve any kind of password safe and secure. Which is offline and pressed into a case of steel.

This BWNS is brought to you byBraveNewCoin, who have built an advanced Market Data Engine and API along with it that can provide you with a Bitcoin Index of Historical Data, a Bitcoin Block Weighted Average Price and a Bitcoin Liquid Index among many others things. Take a look, ContactBraveNewCoin and gather market insight.

Bitcoin Average Exchange Price For The Week

The price per Bitcoin was yet again the biggest news of the week. Just in the opposite way that is was on the first week of 2017. This time around, the price suffered a big dip. So much so, that you can perfectly call it a slam. Taking the price back to pre-rally days. Or to be more precise, to a month back into the past.

With the high of the week being around $921 on Wednesday 11, And then just going on a free fall on Thursday 12 reaching the low of the week at around $762. Friday 13 saw a bounce to around $830 and yet another pull back to around $790. Saturday 14 got a stronger bounce, as it held this time around. Keeping the price on a ride above $820 and up to around $840. Sunday 15 ended the week with less pullback taking the price below the $820 level. But over all keeping above that level.

The factors affecting the price were all derived around more Fear Uncertainty & Doubt from China.

What started on the week 1 of 2017 as FUD from China which killed the rally. Ended up becoming monster FUD as meetings of Chinese Bitcoin Exchanges with the PBOC were met with a few grossly misreported articles that classified the meetings as “raids” and “crackdowns” . Which caused all newcomers to get weak hands syndrome and panic sell. Which in turn added tons of nerves to traders which made them to slow down. Something that affected the price even more.

Some of the effects of these meetings with the PBOC could be perceived right away. As one of the big changes that came from it was that Chinese exchanges stopped offering crazy amounts of leverage. Another effect seemed to have been about they now having to keep fake trading in check. Whether that means the Chinese exchanges are adjusting how they account for trade volume or something else. That is unclear. Nonetheless, Exchange Volume going down during the week in China let a few inquiring traders to see some interesting patterns. With more than one interpreting them as China real exchange Volume being really only about 40%. The evidence to support this cannot be called out as all conclusive, yet one of the points in favor of the theory is that Price per Bitcoin really got slammed when western countries started to panic about badly reported news from China. Instead of tanking immediately as insiders in China got to know about it.

News

It may not have seen like it. But the second week of 2017 was filled with news. To the point that this BWNS will be all about just News.

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Julian Assange read out a block hash from the Bitcoin Blockchain to prove he is alive

In order to finally put a rest to the loud cries of concerned wikileaks supporters. Julian Assange read out some proofs that he is alive while on a video stream used to conduct an Ask Me Anything thread on Reddit. One of the proofs, and the coolest one, was of course using The Bitcoin Blockchain. The block called out was #447506.

Backpage shuts down its Adult section in the USA. Not without loudly calling out censorship and pressure from USA government

One of the things that pretty much created a niche market for Bitcoin when it comes to personal listings. Was without a doubt the fact it is the currency preferred by Backpage once all other kinds of payment processors were forced to drop them.

This week, they shut down the Adult section. Does this mean the escorts that were using it went to another site? No. It simply meant that the Dating Section got a whole lot grayer. Because as everyone knows. Markets just don’t die if there is a demand for them.

The report was a joint effort by ARK Invest and Coinbase. While it cannot be proved as certain enough. It makes for good speculation and headlines. The main giveaway is that according to this report. Most people just hold Bitcoin as an alternative store of value than use it as currency. This only really actually states that the argument of Bitcoin being a store of value could now be considered no brainer in both practice and theory. This does not negates that Bitcoin is still a currency too. Among other things. It just shows that Bitcoin being considered a store of value, or in other terms being perceived as a commodity is one of the most prevalent notions.

Bitcoin will not be banned in Russia. It is now perceived as a private currency

Is the central takeaway out of news from Russia’s Central Bank and Federal Financial Monitoring Service. Another reason on why the band will not be made is simply because it is quite hard to do effectively and without bringing a lot more attention to it. In Russia, something getting banned is almost like advertising it. So, am not surprised Russian Authorities have now realized that.

Pantera Capital has a new $25M USD VC Fund. Will invest in Brave Browser and Abra

Previous investments from Pantera Capital have been Bitstamp and Xapo. Which so far proved to be good call. Another investment in the Bitcoin space was the now defunct ChangeTip. Which as far as I know, they lost money on. Investing in Brave Browser can almost be seen as a replacement investment to the one they did in ChangeTip. Since the goals of the startups are similar in their use of Bitcoin. Both Brave Browser and Abra are far riskier investments than Bitstamp and Xapo, that is for sure. But if they were to work out, they got some really good reputation cache and a decent possible return.

Other Pantera Capital investments in the Bitcoin & Blockchain Spaces have been the provenance geared startup Chronicled. And the now only partly Bitcoin related fintech startup Circle. Regardless of how things go for Pantera Capital is still a very positive thing they are investing in the Bitcoin Space in one way or another.

Some people hated it. Other liked it. Most are quite Meh about it. In my case. I don’t can even decide. The only thing I am sure of it is that it reminds me of the Delicious Bookmarks logo. One thing that can be said is that it is good it is at least OK. After all Blockchain.info is still the #1 Bitcoin Wallet in terms of registered users. This has been BC.info fifth Logo.

In January 12th of 2009, The late Hal Finney was the first recipient of Bitcoins in what was the very first public Bitcoin Blockchain transaction.

Hal Finney died of ALS in August 28 of 2014 and was then put into a cryopreservation state. He can be seen as the founding co-developer of the first working versions of both PGP and Bitcoin. His input no doubt was essential in getting Bitcoin off the ground to a good start.

The Bitcoin exchange in question being Coin.mx. Which at one point was well known in the Bitcoin Space.

Charges on the illegal activity tied him to Money Laundering and facilitating fraud. But this is just tip of the icerberg when it comes to his story. Click on to read more on what is quite an interesting read.

BitX rebranded to Luno. Because they say they want to help Bitcoin reach the moon

Only thing verifiably true about that statement at the time of this news is that Luno does mean moon in Esperanto.

BitX, now Luno is a well known South African Bitcoin Exchange. One you get to meet again. So far with they saying is all regular business as usual and they are all about Bitcoin. With the excuse for the rebrand being that they don’t want to be seen as just an exchange and also all being due to timing as they are now looking to expand to the European market.

Eh, another week, another Bitcoin Startup rebrand. Or at least that how 2017 feels so far.

Bitcoin Merchant Adoption in Japan has grown at least 4X since one year

This according to a recent Survey. Putting the total amount of shops that accept Bitcoin to 4,200 shops.

However, it is unclear how these shops are being counted. That said, I think the premise of the news of a 4X+ jump in Bitcoin Adoption compared to one year ago is no doubt highly plausible. Specially since Japan now has two solid Bitcoin Exchanges in Coincheck and Bitflyer. And has even saw the appearance of a small Bitcoin Themed reality TV show there among several other news. 2016 was very clearly the year Bitcoin got traction in Japan again. It looks like 2017 at the very least will keep things moving forward in a upwards trajectory.

Is the question that Neil Woodfine, who also happens to be Bitcoin Beijing Meetup organizer wants to answer. Starting by looking at Trade Volume. Very recommended read as this also serves as an explainer on this week news explained in what happened when it came to the price per Bitcoin.

This BWNS is brought to you byBraveNewCoin, who have built an advanced Market Data Engine and API along with it that can provide you with a Bitcoin Index of Historical Data, a Bitcoin Block Weighted Average Price and a Bitcoin Liquid Index among many others things. Take a look, ContactBraveNewCoin and gather market insight.

The price per Bitcoin was no doubt the main news event for the first week of 2017. With it starting out on a dramatic rally from the day 1.

With a high of $967 USD on Sunday of January 1st that then went on to be an almost 5 days streak that took it to a high of $1154 on Thursday 5. But it also then saw it have a hard correction, which you can categorize as a dive, that brought it back to around where the rally started with a low of $959 and a high of $1033 on Friday 6. That almost signaled the price level could reach back to the high of the week. But this was not to be and instead it took another dive to the bottom of the week on Saturday 7 at a low of $831. All in all the first week of 2017 ended with a recover from that bottom to a respectable high of $940 on Sunday 8.

With the factors affecting the price so wildly being many. You can only really call on the ones that made the price drop. Those in question being among other things: 1.- Profit taking from people that had bought high as far back as December 2013, 2.- Coinbase having issues where they said they could just not keep with the traffic demand on their domain, 3.- BTC-e reportedly having some issues where some users could just not log in or could not execute their trades if they happened to be logged in; 4.- Communication from China’s Government calling out Chinese Bitcoin Exchanges that was badly translated or maliciously interpreted which quickly turned into spooky FUD that gave traders in China pause and made traders not on China somewhat nervous. 5.- Chinese Yuan Stopping its devaluation path for a few days and instead gaining back some ground. With all of that killing the uptrend in the Bitcoin Average Exchange Price.

Having said all this, it is good to put in perspective that even if the price ended up below $1000. Price levels are still around what they were just weeks or so ago.

When it comes to other price specific news: There were a few like:

- All Time High in Euros

- All Time High in Yuan

- Bitcoin MC/NSM for a few brief moments reached $19 Billion USD.

News

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The European Parliament and The Council of the European Union proposed amending a directive related to money laundering and terrorism financing to include in Cryptocurrencies.

The plan being to further span across Latin America and even aim to enter into Mexico.

When asked about the rebrand, the reason given was that they wanted a brand that fit with their desire to offer many services to all kinds of users and not just B2B payment processing for Merchants. This answer being important since in the Bitcoin space rebrands during 2016 got associated with either the startup pivoting off being a Bitcoin Startup into a more run of the mill Fintech startup or integrating altcoins.

Right now all pointing out to just an understandable rebrand instead. While continuing to have Bitcoin as its core focus.

Microsoft will add Bitcoin support to Excel 2017 in a future Office 365 update

Also fully describing Bitcoin as Currency, the upcoming 2017 update will allow Excel to be able to recognize, format, calculate and analyze numbers expressed in Bitcoin currency. The new feature will be available for Excel running under Windows 10, Android, Mac OS and iOS, and will include Excel Mobile versions as well. This as stated by Martin Butler, an Account Executive at Microsoft. While this news stems from 22 of December post. It was not until this week that the news caught up attention.

In my opinion, it is unclear that’s the case. Likely it is not so officially as that would need to be explicitly stated as so by the Bank of Colombia or a high rank government official. What can be argued is that it just became a grayer currency in Colombia. All because of scams perpetrated that used Bitcoin as part of pyramidal scams called “investments clubs’' that have brought the attention of the Colombian Government. Which only stated as much as saying that the only legal tender in Colombia is the Colombian Peso.

In the news saga that is Coinbase vs the IRS desire to get all of Coinbase’s USA based users data for 3 years in Bulk without any regards of privacy in one go. It is now known that Coinbase is fighting it. But there is a USA based Coinbase user fighting the IRS on it on his own. Normally that would be quite a risky thing to do. But in Jeffrey K Berns it is not just the right to do. But also kind of what he does anyway. Since he happens to be a Well leveled Lawyer fond on fighting branches of the USA government in court. However, it is clear it helps a lot if he happens to be clearly in the right like it is in this case. So much so, that his first motion drew a direct response from the IRS which pretty much exempted him from the whole deal with Coinbase. Jeffrey Berns now argues that his point was not to save himself, but to not let the IRS be unfair. Meaning he will continue to fight them on. While there is no clear sign he can win. It is a commendable stand to take from him. Let’s hope it helps out.

As of January 3 of 2017, The Bitcoin Network got to 8 years of running non-stop for everyone and everywhere.

PBOC statement that was taken out of context, turned in to FUD and helped kill Bitcoin Average Exchange Price fast uptrend during the week resulted in much ado to nothing

The only clear things that the People’s Bank Of China said were: 1.- that Bitcoin is no legal tender in China, 2.- Bitcoin is volatile, 3.- Chinese exchanges must have strong KYC/AML practices; 4.- Chinese Exchanges should not fake volume.

A new Bitcoin focused documentary movie by Gravitas Ventures called Banking on Bitcoin debuted on iTunes and Vudu.

I have now watched it. It is good enough for all kind of Bitcoiners. Really good for those that aren’t just like it is the case with past Bitcoin focused Documentaries. It basically recalls Bitcoin History while mostly trawling around late 2013 to late 2015. Done in a similar way to how it was done by The Rise and Rise of Bitcoin. It almost works as an unintended sequel of sorts.

The movie will also be available later on Google Play and Amazon Video.

Around the same time one of the posts in /r/Bitcoin reached up /all/ and The Reddit frontpage. Making it so that /r/Bitcoin at one point had over 7000 people logged at the same time into the subreddit. Probably also a new record.

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Articles

Bitcoin Adoption Accelerating In Mexico?

I say yes and so does Bitso, which is now apparently the #1 Bitcoin Exchange in Mexico. Localbitcoins and paxful usage in Mexico has also grown and in general there are now more ways to use Bitcoin in Mexico. Some do require bridging services though.

It does makes sense for Bitcoin usage in Mexico to be growing faster. Specially now that everyone in Mexico has the burden of some really harsh mandated price increases without clear reason and transparent disregard for most Mexicans well being. Which happens to be the case of the sudden 20% price increase in GAS that came in effect on January 1st of 2017. One that will assure inflation for the year on most goods, many services and transport to also go over 20%. Add to that that some Mexicans in the USA are always looking for better remittance options. Bitcoin usage in Mexico increasing is a sensible development.

Back in 2013 when the price per Bitcoin first reached $100 USD. I started posting excited cat photos with the price highlights. Something I have kept going when I feel it makes sense to do so. I call them BAEP Cats. When Bitcoin got up to $1000 and $1100 again. I released new BAEP Cats for those two occasions. Here they are:

Bitflyer did a series of Bitcoin Video Ads and put one on Yahoo Japan Homepage.

I liked them. Here is one:

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LineRider Bitcoin Technical Analysis

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Seems legit.

During the BAEP rally this week. /r/Bitcoin got a bit out of control.

ThePiachu, one of /r/Bitcoin Admins highlighted the madness by…posting this photo to /r/Bitcoin. I mean, makes sense right?

Avatar X Note: This post was submitted to Appatic and written by James Smith and should be considered an Info Post more or less. I only edited it.

EDB to PST Converter is a solution to move Exchange mailboxes and public folder data into Outlook PST. Meant for Windows OS platform;the tool process conversion on dismounted, password protected, and corrupt EDB file. The solution is a creation of SysTools Group that is known for its famed services in email migration and data recovery domain.

This particular product extracts data from user-mailboxes and shared data in public folders into PST that gives variety of benefits of administrators like relocating mailboxes, archiving, handling downtime, accessing data inside network and much more. The tool works on minimum system requisites and can perform conversion on multiple PST files at once.

Qualities Of the Software

The tool gives the benefit of converting pub.edb and priv.edb file into MS Outlook PST file.

Mailboxes of any size can be migrated into PST as resultant Outlook file is Unicode formatted.

Password protected, corrupt, and dismounted EDB file can be converted into Outlook PST.

Selective items, mailboxes, and folders can be exported from Exchange EDB file to PST.

This tool to convert EDB to PST gives optional facility to ignore System Folders from export.

Split PST option is available in tool to divide large sized mailboxes into section (1 to 45 GB).

For users of lower Exchange edition, the option to select and export STM file is included.

Evaluation and Investment:

Software Analysis: For product evaluation, its developers offers free trial version. The freeware works perfectly well to analyze the software and get an idea of if the product is suitable to fix the problem. It has scanning and exporting options activated but only first 25 items from every folder of EDB file will be converted into PST file.

Purchase Process: The tool is available in four different licenses: Personal, Corporate, Technician, and Enterprise. This categorization of licenses is definitely an advantage if the product has to be invested for single user or for multiple users, or for multiple users in different geographical area.

There are three gateways provided by the company to make payment for the product: FastSpring, PayPal, and 2Checkout. Activation key of the product will be provided on email address that is mentioned while filling form for payment making.

Positive Points:

Speed of the tool is something that is absolutely appreciable. Along with this, there is precision in output; be it mentioning about the HTML formatting, metadata of email, folder mapping, or retaining data.

If stuck while performing EDB to PST conversion, contact to technical support department can be made. This service is available 24/7 and is absolutely free.

There is 30 days money back guarantee if the product fails to work as promised. However, there are certain terms and conditions of the company for its refund policy. Go through them thoroughly.

EDB file of any size can be converted into Outlook PST file. Most importantly, there is support to pub.edb to PST conversion available which is hardly provided by Microsoft native solutions.

Software ability to work on corrupt and dismounted EDB file makes it an EDB to PST recovery solution. This quality of the tool helps users to extract data when the offline database file of Exchange is damaged or is inconsistent.

Scope of Improvement:

The software recovers data from EDB file if it is dismounted from Server. Its inability to extract data from an online EDB file is a drawback that might halter working of organization when live EDB to PST conversion is the call.

The refund policy of the company has lots of terms and conditions that a user might not read before purchasing. Less T&C would make it more clear for the users.

There is no option in the tool for recovering deleted data even if it lies under retention period. Deleted data recovery option is un-supported which is a pull back in the tool.

Conclusions:

Although there are different native solutions offered by Microsoft to export mailboxes into PST file, still third party tools give a user to invest in them. SysTools EDB to PST Converter is a powerful solution for the basic functioning of moving mailboxes into Outlook PST file.

The plus point of the tool is its accuracy in output with minimum time investment. Also, its price is reasonable as compared to other EDB to PST conversion tools (this could be because of concentration of tool more on just converting EDB to PST).

If some improvement is made in the product, it could be the best EDB to PST file conversion tool in the market. Although there are number of plus points in the tool but progress is needed.

EDB to PST Converter works on all versions of Windows. From XP SP3 to Windows 8.1-U1 and got a Freemium scheme to it.